The man pulled the packed away. “It’s probably a mistake,” said the first man. “If you come with us, we can get it cleared up.”
Danelka hesitated. “I’m going to call my Subdirector. He must be notified.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Treason … that’s ridiculous.” A sick look skidded across his face.
“A mistake, surely,” said the man on the left. “We will clear it up now, and you can return to your kraam and to your supper.”
The man on the right took Danelka firmly by the arm and pulled him away from the lift. “Let’s go quietly. It does not look good for a man of authority to cause trouble.”
“It is a mistake,” said Danelka harshly. “And you will soon regret your part in it, I promise you.”
The interim Director was taken to an interrogation kraam in one of the Hageblocks near the Tanais border with Saecaraz. There he was made to stand before an Invisible who was sitting behind a portable data screen. The Invisible read a long list of charges, then looked up at the prisoner for the first time. “Do you confess to these charges?”
“Lies! All lies!” Danelka shouted. “I confess to nothing. I want to call my Subdirector.”
The Invisible remained silent, but motioned to the two who had brought him in. Danelka resisted and was dragged bodily into the next room, where he was shoved into a large metal chair. His yos was stripped off, and loops of thin wire were fastened around his wrists and ankles and around his neck.
“You can’t do this to me!” shouted Danelka. “I am the Tanais Director. I demand a Threl hearing.”
The Invisibles left then, Danelka’s angry shouts ringing in the empty room. A few moments later two more Invisibles entered the room. One took his place behind the console which controlled the chair, and the other came to stand before the prisoner. Danelka took one look at the Mors Ultima yos and quailed.
“We know you are in contact with your former Director,” said Mrukk. “I can have the charges against you dropped now if you tell me where he is.”
Danelka glared back at the Mors Ultima commander, but kept his mouth firmly shut.
“He will be caught and executed for the traitor he is.” Mrukk put his face close to his victim’s. “But you don’t have to share his fate. You can go free. I can arrange it for you to continue as Director. I can even see to it that you are rewarded: ten thousand shares. It’s all yours if you speak up now.”
The Tanais Director pro-tem squirmed in the interrogation chair. The wire thongs bit into his flesh at wrists and ankles. “I won’t be bought,” he uttered through clenched teeth.
“Too bad,” sighed Mrukk. “Ten thousand shares—a man could do something with ten thousand shares.” He gave a nod to the Invisible behind the console, and the wire thongs jerked tight. Danelka stifled a scream. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and trickled from his armpits.
“Your loyalty is admirable,” continued Mrukk as if nothing had happened. “But do you not have a greater loyalty to the Supreme Director? That’s worth thinking about. Shall I leave you to think about it?”
Danelka stared at his blue, swollen hands. His feet felt as if they were about to burst. Sharp needles stabbed his flesh. “I will come back in a few hours to see if you have changed your mind.”
“I won’t tell you,” Danelka hissed. “Kill me now.”
“No, not yet,” replied Mrukk, pressing his face close. “Already you ask for death, and we have just begun. It can get much worse. Believe me … much worse. You’ll be amazed to discover how much you can take. I’ll be back and we’ll talk again.”
“Trabant take you!”
Mrukk strode from the room and heard his victim’s screams sharp in the air. There was still much force behind the cries, but a few more hours under the wires would see them weaken.
When Mrukk returned, Danelka was unconscious, his flesh pasty and damp, his breath coming in shallow gasps. The Mors Ultima chief smiled to himself. It was too easy, really. These bloodless wretches had no stamina, no endurance. The first twinge of pain and they crumbled.
“Wake him up,” Mrukk ordered. The Invisible monitoring the pain sensors stepped from behind the console with a probe in his hand. He applied the probe to the side of the victim’s neck, and the body jerked spasmodically. Danelka’s eyes fluttered open, and he moaned.
“Now then,” said Mrukk, “this can stop at once. Tell me where your master is and what he plans, and I will release you.”
Danelka made no reply. His head rolled limply on his chest. Mrukk leaned forward, grasped a handful of hair, and snapped the head up. He gazed into the clouded eyes.
Taking the probe from the Invisible standing by, Mrukk inserted the probe in the victim’s mouth. A strangled scream tore from Danelka’s throat; front teeth shattered as rigid jaw muscles clamped tight.
“That’s better,” observed Mrukk, peering into his victim’s eyes again. The fresh pain had revived Danelka somewhat. “Now then, tell me and this will end. Where is Tvrdy?”
Danelka opened his mouth, hesitated. Mrukk brought the probe close once more. “N-n-o! I—I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me then.”
“He is with the Dhogs in the Old Section.”
“We already know that!” shouted Mrukk. “What are his plans?”
Anger shook the young man’s frame. “Y-you said … only … where he is … you said—”
“That was before. But you’ve kept me waiting. I want more. What are his plans?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.” Mrukk placed the probe against the soft flesh of the Tanais Subdirector’s belly. The man writhed in the chair, cords standing out on his neck, facial muscles etched in a rictus of agony.”
“What are his plans?”
Danelka gasped. “I don’t know.”
Mrukk’s hand flicked out from under his yos. He held the knife blade before Danelka’s horrified face. “His plans?”
Danelka, sweat streaming from his face, shook his head weakly. The blade dropped, and the Subdirector’s index finger tumbled onto the floor amidst a spray of blood.
Mrukk raised the stained knife blade again. “You have many other fingers, Hageman. We will try again. What are Tvrdy’s plans?”
Danelka grimaced and spat out, “I don’t know his plans. He did not tell me.”
The blade slashed down, and another finger rolled to the floor. Mrukk stooped to retrieve it, held it up before Danelka’s ghostly face. “Perhaps he did not tell you precisely what his plans were,” he said, turning the severed finger around. “But he told you something. What did he tell you?”
Mrukk lowered the razor-sharp blade slowly onto Danelka’s little finger. The hand, held firm by the wire at the wrist, twitched, but could not evade the knife. The blade pressed down.
“The Trabantonna!” Danelka yelled. “The Trabantonna …”
“What will happen?”
Danelka squeezed his eyes shut as tears streamed down his face. “Assassination.”
Mrukk straightened, grimacing fiercely. “You stinking Tanais filth!”
Danelka’s eyes flew open. “I—I told you … release me!”
Mrukk’s hand blurred in the air, and the knife sliced through the soft flesh of his victim’s neck. Danelka’s scream died bubbling in his throat.
Mrukk entered Jamrog’s kraam, was met by Osmas, and passed quickly through to Jamrog’s private bedchamber. There Mrukk found the Supreme Director in the company of three comely young Hagemates. The girls giggled as the Mors Ultima commander came in.
“Ah, Mrukk,” said Jamrog, rolling out of bed. “I expected you much earlier and grew tired of waiting.”
“The subject was quite unresponsive, Supreme Director. He required extensive convincing.”
“And was he convinced?”
“In the end.”
Jamrog laughed. “You can be most persuasive, Mrukk.” He held out his arms for one of the girls to drape a hagerobe over him. “Leave us for the mo
ment,” he told them. The girls tittered, and Mrukk’s eyes followed their easy movement as they flounced from the room. Jamrog saw the look and said, “Yes, they are beautiful, aren’t they? But you don’t like women, do you? What do you like, Mrukk? I wonder.”
The Mors Ultima stiffened.
“Ah, well, what did your inquiries produce?”
“It is as we suspected, Supreme Director,” Mrukk replied tersely. “Tvrdy and the others have fled to the Old Section. They have formed an alliance with the Dhogs.”
Jamrog nodded, walked to a table, took the flask from the warming cradle, and poured two cups of souile. He handed one to Mrukk and downed his cup in a single swallow, poured another, and sipped slowly. “Yes, it is as we suspected. Continue.”
Mrukk stared at the cup in his hand. “They are transferring information freely from the Hages to the Old Section.”
“Yes, yes,” said Jamrog impatiently, “do go on.”
Mrukk glanced up and eyed the Supreme Director.
“What is it?” demanded Jamrog. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“There is to be an assassination.”
“An attempt on my life? When?”
“During the Trabantonna.”
“During the Trabantonna!” Jamrog cried. “Wonderful!”
“We don’t know where.”
Jamrog sipped the warm souile and said, “It doesn’t matter. We’ll be ready for them. This will be a triumph, Mrukk. A triumph!” Jamrog downed his cup in a gulp and poured another. “We must make special arrangements for our unexpected guests. You’ll see to it, Mrukk.”
The Mors Ultima nodded slowly. “I will see to it.”
“Tvrdy has overreached himself at last, and will be destroyed!” Jamrog spun and smashed his cup down on the table. The cup shattered, and glass fragments scattered over the floor. Jamrog raised a bleeding finger to his mouth and sucked it. “I don’t want him killed, Mrukk. Instruct your men; they can kill the others, but not Tvrdy.”
“They will be instructed.”
Mrukk turned and made his way to the door. “Remember,” Jamrog called after him. “I want him alive. Alive!”
FORTY-FIVE
The night before Trabantonna the Hage priests hold vigil in the temples of Empyrion. Black tapers of rendered human fat with wicks made from the braided hair of children are burnt though the night, while the priests pour libations over themselves and submit their bodies for ritual cleansings.
As dawn draws near, the priestly revel reaches its climax as the Hage priests, having chosen the corpse of a recently deceased Hageman, strip the corpse, paint it red, and bind it to a thronelike chair. In an elaborate ceremony the cadaver is consecrated to Trabant Animus. The chair and its grotesque occupant are then lifted high and marched around the temple.
As morning’s first light strikes Dome’s massive crystal panes, the painted corpse emerges from the temple borne on the shoulders of the Hage priests. The procession is greeted by the people who have gathered before daybreak to await the spectacle. The priests push through the crowd and move slowly down the ramp and into the temple square now thronged with onlookers. Those closest to the priests press themselves closer still in an effort to touch the lifeless celebrant as the chair passes.
The chair is carried in this way to the center of the Hage where, in the largest square or plaza, it is established at the head of a table set up on a stage or scaffold. The corpse is officially welcomed and the title Chairman of the Feast conferred upon it. The populace then engages in rites of mourning: men shout and curse and pound the stones with their fists; women wail and throw themselves to the ground, tearing at their clothing and hair.
When the ritual mourning reaches a fevered emotional pitch, a Hage priest, dressed in a scarlet yos, moves through the crowd, scattering warm blood (from freshly killed sacrificial animals) over the mourners. Upon receiving the spattered blood on clothing, faces, and hands, the people leap up and begin dancing hysterically, throwing themselves into wild and unnatural contortions. They scratch themselves and claw at their flesh, they writhe and squirm, they shake with convulsions—all this to the accompaniment of a ghastly chorus of howls and shrieks.
The mad dance continues until exhaustion overcomes the participants. Gradually the screams die and the people lie still. The priests then move through the cataleptic throng touching the people on the back of the neck with a ceremonial bhuj. At the touch, each unmoving Hageman rises slowly and goes to the table where, taking up a bowl and filling it from the mounds of food piled in the center of the board, he sits down to eat.
So begins the Trabantonna, the Feast of the Dead.
Jamrog looked out on Hage Saecaraz from a rimwall overlooking Threl Square, where the Saecaraz Trabantonna celebration had just commenced. The squares, filled to overflowing with bellowing, gyrating Hagemen, were ringed with gigantic banners bearing the Supreme Director’s likeness. Mrukk stood beside him, restless, wary, tense.
“Relax, Mrukk,” Jamrog cooed. “It is early yet. The Feast is just begun. He will not strike so soon. He will wait until the evening, when the chaos is complete. Then Tvrdy will come. And then we will spring our trap.”
“Underestimate Tvrdy today, Supreme Director,” replied Mrukk stiffly, “and you will pay with your life.”
“Have you no faith in your own Mors Ultima to protect me?” Jamrog’s smile was fierce and rigid.
Mrukk did not answer. Instead he said, “I have posted men in every Hage. We will be in continual contact with them as we move from Hage to Hage. Any unusual activity today will be met with extreme force.”
“Pity the celebrant who drinks too much souile and wanders off to puke in the river.” Jamrog’s laugh was a sharp bark.
“We are not playing tuebla. Let Tvrdy outsmart you and tomorrow Empyrion will have a new Supreme Director.”
“You would like that, Mrukk, would you?” Jamrog laughed again and turned to gaze out over the square where the celebrants writhed and flailed, their screams ringing off the stone. “Listen, it’s the music of misery,” said Jamrog. “This will soon be Tvrdy’s song as well.”
“You wish to join the feast now?” asked Subdirector Osmas, deep lines of anxiety etched across his forehead. He and several underdirectors stood back among the Invisibles; they knew of the impending assassination attempt and were trying to remain inconspicuous.
Mrukk stood with arms folded across his chest, black yos glistening in the morning light, narrow eyes sweeping the scene below, watching for any unusual detail: a figure too aloof, an eye too watchful, a shadow out of place.
“It’s a long day. There’s no need to hurry it along. We can wait here a few more minutes. I will make my appearance when the feast has begun.”
They watched as one by one the celebrants grew still. When all the square lay covered with unmoving bodies, the Saecaraz priests began moving among the silent populace, touching each celebrant on the neck and passing on. When all the people had been thus resurrected, Jamrog turned to Mrukk and said, “Now I will go down to them.”
Jamrog turned and, with Mrukk at his right hand and his close bodyguard of handpicked Mors Ultima right behind, made his way down to the square. There, to the loud acclaim of his Hagemen, he climbed to the high table where the grinning corpse sat overlooking the feast. The Supreme Director gazed benevolently out upon the proceedings and spoke a few words of license to the revelers. He was presented with a bowl of food, which he accepted and immediately passed to one of his bodyguards. Jamrog then walked among the celebrants for a time.
So caught up was he in the drama of his own presence, Jamrog did not notice that their greetings were perfunctory and subdued—as if the people were afraid to address him at all, yet feared not addressing him even more.
When he had tired of the Saecaraz, Jamrog and his entourage left Threl Square, boarded waiting ems, and were whisked away to Hage Nilokerus. There they were greeted by Director Diltz, who welcomed them warmly and led them along to the fea
st site. “As you have ordered, Invisibles are scattered among the celebrants, and the perimeter is under hidden patrol. There have been no reports of anyone leaving the feast, and all who arrive are searched.”
“Have you found anything?” asked Mrukk.
“Nothing.”
“You won’t find anything,” said Jamrog. “Tvrdy will not attack here. He will choose a neutral place. Hage Nilokerus is too hostile for him. He needs a place where he can maneuver more easily—Hyrgo, Rumon, or Tanais would suit him best.”
“I’d say Tanais,” offered Diltz. “There his network, if he has one, will be ready.”
“It would suite Tvrdy’s arrogance,” said Osmas. He shrank back as soon as he had spoken, remembering his plan to stay out of sight.
“Enough,” Jamrog said. “I have come to participate in a feast, not a funeral. We’ll stay with our plan and trust to Mrukk’s invincible efficiency.”
Mrukk grunted, and they moved off. A few hours later the party moved on to Chryse Hage, arriving by boat. They disembarked and were greeted by Director Dey and his underlings, who escorted the growing entourage to the feast site where the Chryse, in an effort to outshine the other Hages in an extravagant show of loyalty, had constructed a huge, octagonal tower in the center of the feast square and scores of long poles around its perimeter. Each side of the tower, as well as every pole, wore Jamrog’s huge portrait framed in Saecaraz red.
The gesture was not wasted on the Supreme Director. “I’m impressed, Director,” he whispered. “I did not expect the Chryse to respond so warmly.”
Dey caught the insinuated reference to the imprisonment of the seventy-five Chryse and replied, “My Hagemen would not have you think that all Chryse are suspect. They want you to know that they are forever loyal to their beloved Supreme Director. This …”—he gestured to the massive display—over a hundred gigantic banners in all—“is but a small token of Chryse sentiment.”
“I’m sure it is,” Jamrog replied. “I am flattered. What is more, such a demonstration requires a response of equal magnitude. Once their reorientation is completed, Director, I will personally see to it that your Hagemen are returned to Hage Chryse rather than being reassigned elsewhere.”
Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome Page 28